User blog:Promestein/Starcross - Heated Gaming Moment
|-|EQUINOX= The sound of a loud crash sends a violent shock through EQUINOX’s body and puts every single one of her thoughts on hold. She almost drops her pen from her trembling hand, and slowly turns her head to the direction from which the sound came. Alice’s office. A few moments later, there’s another few crashes. Each, like the first, is loud enough to get to EQUINOX through the pounding of metal music that filtered through her headphones. They’re accompanied by enraged shrieks that no longer carry any meaning or words, but each is unmistakably Alice. EQUINOX stares in the direction of the sounds for a moment, before slowly moving her attention back to the work that lay in front of her. The incomplete tool that Alice would use in her ambitions. It’s still mostly in the planning stages, so the majority of this work is pages and pages of schematics and ideas. She had been experimenting with trying to make a miniaturized, alchemy-based tokamak. Now, it’s impossible to focus enough. Her heart pounds in her chest. What should she do? If she doesn’t go, Alice might be angry. But if she does go, well… Alice is already angry. She shoves the end of her pen into her mouth and begins chewing. It’s a lose-lose situation, EQUINOX realizes, as she mulls it over. Alice will definitely be angry if she doesn’t go to check on her. She is also definitely very angry right now, and has likely broken something. If it’s her own personal property, she’s going to be even angrier. Even though Alice would be easier to deal with if she broke something of EQUINOX’s, EQUINOX has enough selfishness still in her heart to hope that she didn’t. She also has enough to sit there, paralyzed by fear and indecision, gnawing on her pen. EQUINOX is disgusted with herself. Trembling, she steps away from her desk, taking a deep breath, trying to psych herself up. Come on, EQ. You can deal with this. It won’t be as bad if you go check up on her. Though every step is a struggle, the journey isn’t that long and only gets shorter with every movement. The door to Alice’s office is open. EQUINOX leans in, holding onto the frame, tightly, her knuckles blanching. What she sees inside is not exactly surprising. Alice is leaning against the wall, an expression of frustration painted onto her face, with her thumbnail wedged firmly between her front teeth. The remains of a desktop monitor are scattered over the floor. The keyboard is lying in pieces, too. The mouse, embedded into the wall. All of those things are EQUINOX’s. Alice only has a laptop. EQUINOX only spares them a glance, though. All she can see is Alice, grinding her nail between her teeth until the thumb bleeds, glaring at her out of the corner of her eye. EQUINOX trembles, feeling as if she’s going to scream at the slightest touch. But Alice only twitches her arm, shoving her thumbnail further up between her teeth. Even though she’s biting into her finger. Her expression shifts, angrier, angrier, angrier, and she takes in deeper breaths, slowly dropping her hand from her mouth. The blood drips into the carpet. In a quiet, level voice, Alice says, “Sorry about your monitor. I’ll buy you a new one. I didn’t damage the computer itself.” The words barely process. EQUINOX’s heart is hammering, her brain and thoughts an indecipherable jumble. What even happened? She tries to stop herself from taking wheezing breaths, tries to keep her expression level. The latter is easier, though EQUINOX has clenched her jaw uncontrollably, so hard that she feels like she’ll crack her teeth, but she can’t stop the hyperventilating. In preparation for what will inevitably come, all the sensation bleeds from her body until it’s cold and dead. Until she’s just standing there like a zombie. Undead. Tears prick at her eyes. Alice’s eyes are closed. Her thumbnail has returned to its place between her front teeth, grinding out a steady rhythm. Then, she drops it, and, in a shakier voice, says, “Did you hear me? I said I’ll replace it, EQUINOX.” In response to her name, EQUINOX blinks, once, twice, and then nods. A very small nod. Her body feels frozen. She can barely do it. Her eyes creep towards the guts of her monitor. A dreadful resignment settles in her stomach, a cold, nauseating feeling. “Could you… be a dear, and get me a bandage, please? I’ve broken my nail and cut my thumb.” Alice’s voice settles in through the haze, and EQUINOX’s eyes move back towards her. She blinks away tears, and nods, stepping away, slowly, without looking away. “Uh, yeah.” Alice looks at her like she thinks she’s an idiot, and EQUINOX almost vomits when the terror it induces strikes her heart. She turns away, and walks, as fast as she can, to the bathroom. It’s not very fast. Her legs are barely listening to her. Once she’s there, EQUINOX swings the door shut and collapses against the sink, gulping in panicked breaths. The door slams into place. EQUINOX retches but nothing comes up, and she chokes out a sob. With a hand, she pushes her glasses out of the way and lets it come, for a moment, crying into her hand. But she’s fine. It’s fine. The tears don’t last, and EQUINOX wipes them away before adjusting her glasses. She lingers, staring into her empty eyes, before dropping eye contact and looking at her hands. The ring, on her finger. What are you thinking, EQUINOX? She shakes her head and flicks herself in the forehead, stepping away to the medicine cabinet. Bandaids. Bandaids. Alice is a 30-year old woman. Why does she need a bandaid? EQUINOX had figured, long ago, that these were for Venus. They’re cute, the kind of bandaids you get for your kids. Snake-themed, of course. Now, she knows that Alice is the only one that uses these bandaids, and everyone else bleeds until the wound heals like a normal person. Even Venus. EQUINOX strays from the bathroom, a small bandaid in her hand, and she finds her way back to the office room. Alice is awkwardly sifting through the remains of the monitor. “You don’t have to do that,” EQUINOX mumbles, in a small, hoarse voice, and Alice jerks her head up to look at her. “I got your bandaid.” She holds it out, trembling, and after one more glare, Alice snatches it from her and quietly applies it to her thumb. “Thanks.” Her voice is calmer than before, but still terse. EQUINOX swallows. “What… what happened?” Alice glares at her, and doesn’t answer. EQUINOX bows her head, apologetically. Alice straightens up, standing all the way to her maximum height and staring down at her thumb, which she flexes, experimentally. Even though the wound is light, and even though she’s definitely taken worse, she fidgets with it, a small scowl on her face. EQUINOX chews on her tongue, and then says, “You don’t have to buy a new one. I can fix it.” She says it quickly, without thinking, but that’s okay. Alice will like this. Another glare, and EQUINOX’s heart sinks. “I’ll buy a new one,” she mumbles, walking past. “You should focus on your work. Still on the planning stage, right?” Her words are accusatory, disapproving, and EQUINOX shrinks back, fearfully. She can see the next moments clearly. She regrets saying that. She regrets leaving the room. She regrets coming into existence. “Sorry, sorry, sorry,” she says, over and over again, before Alice can lash out, and, thankfully, it doesn’t come. Alice just looks down at her, eyes narrowed, and stomps down the hall, already chewing on her bandaged thumb again. EQUINOX can hear the unspoken ‘you don’t have to apologize so much’, which is really just a ‘shut up and get out of sight’, and she slinks back to her work, shooting one last glance at her monitor’s remains. |-|Alice= It happens before Alice even realizes what she’s doing, and by the time it’s done, the blinding red haze is slowly receding from her sight. She backs away from the desk slowly, taking stumbling steps before she trips over her own desk chair and almost falls flat on her ass. With an irritated shriek, she grabs it and tosses it aside. Not hard enough for it to break or fly through the air. Instead, it just rolls all the way to the opposite wall, leaving a small dent on impact. Chest heaving as her body processes the aftereffects of her rage, Alice rams her thumbnail between her front teeth, grinding it back and forth and leaning against the wall. The motion is so rough that she begins to bleed, and Alice winces as the taste of blood spills into her mouth, spitting it away and pulling her hand down. Disgusting, bad, awful. Within the minute, her thumbnail is back between her teeth, and her mind elsewhere. She had lost. She had lost in a game, online, to some random, plain assortment of assholes. Impossible. The idea is difficult to process, so Alice repeats it to herself again, and again, trying to hammer it in. Her thought process deflects it all, ping ponging to alternative explanation after alternative explanation. Maybe it lagged. It’s not like it was a one-on-one game, anyways! I didn’t lose, it was my shitbrained teammates! Alice scowls harder and wedges her thumbnail up further between her teeth. Yes, her teammates. It’s all their fault. She should know better than to depend on any normal people. None of them could think on her level, so she’s just bound to be sabotaged by their simple minds. Not even she can carry the weight of so many idiots, the weight of the sky. Not yet, at least. Once EQUINOX finished her work, the sky, the whole of the Earth, would all be… wait, EQUINOX. EQUINOX. Alice blinks, and looks down at the guts of EQUINOX’s monitor, the shattered remains of her keyboard. Ah, goddammit. Alice runs a hand over her face and takes in a deep breath, closing her eyes before opening them again, part of her proving childish enough to hope that it’ll go away if she does so. But it’s still there. Of course when she flips out and breaks something it’s one of EQUINOX’s things. Alice is glad she didn’t break her laptop, because that’s a lot more fragile and is one object, not a bunch of things connected. But still, she broke something of EQUINOX’s and now she’s going to have to make it up to her. The idea makes her anger worse. Of course that’s how today’s going to go. What a fucking disaster. Alice slowly turns her head towards the doorway as a movement catches her attention. EQUINOX. Shit. She shoots her a glare out of the corner of her eye, guilt threatening to overtake her for a moment before it’s replaced by bitter, seething anger. She should’ve stayed out of this for now and kept on working on Alice’s future, rather than stick her nose into this stupid, stupid situation. Shame floods through her body, and it takes all her effort not to clap her hands to her cheeks and screech in self-loathing. She had ruined EQUINOX’s monitor over a fucking video game. Is she still eight years old? Must be the fucking case, because this isn’t the first time she’s broken a fucking computer! It takes Alice a moment to realize EQUINOX isn’t looking at her monitor; she had spared them a glance, sure, but now, her focus was on Alice. She has a hand on the doorframe, and is holding onto it so tight her knuckles are turning white. Her face is pale, and she trembles, eyes wide, all of this fixated on Alice. As this settles into Alice’s mind, she powers through a fraction of a second’s worth of a guilt before replacing it all with anger. She twitches, driving her thumb up further, biting into the flesh and stabbing her nail into her gums. But she doesn’t do anything stupid, even though the impulse is there. Even though her heart is screaming at her to do it. No, Alice drops her hand from her mouth and breathes deeply, counting to five. Calm. Calm. Calm. It barely works. Quietly, ignoring the sound of her blood dripping to the carpet, Alice says, in the flattest voice she can manage, “Sorry about your monitor. I’ll buy you a new one. I didn’t damage the computer itself.” There’s no response. No verbal one, at least. Alice can hear her heart pounding in her chest, can see it moving in and out faster and faster as EQUINOX begins to hyperventilate. Guilt turns to disbelief, souring with the beginning of another explosion of anger, as Alice realizes she’s on the verge of tears. From an outburst on the other side of the house!? She has to count to ten, this time, and she closes her eyes, ramming her thumbnail back where it belongs. Her gums hurt. Alice hates repeating herself, but she does so anyways, forcing herself to pry her thumb from her mouth. “Did you hear me? I said I’ll replace it, EQUINOX.” This time, EQUINOX reacts properly, blinking twice before she gives a small nod. Then, she slowly turns her attention to the remains of her monitor. For a few moments, Alice just stares at her, and slowly, her anger begins to fade. Not all the way. It slips out from between her fingers little by little, and in its place remorse begins to show itself. She pretends to investigate her nails, needing a distraction, and has her attention caught by her maimed thumb. Well, it’s not that bad. The nail’s a little broken, and there’s a bloody imprint that reaches underneath. It stings, but Alice has had worse. The pain’s not the issue, anyways. Alice pulls her eyes away from the blood, feeling a little sick, and quietly asks, “Could you… be a dear, and get me a bandage, please? I’ve broken my nail and cut my thumb.” EQUINOX looks back at her, tears in her eyes and nods before taking a few steps away. “Uh, yeah.” She doesn’t stop staring at her despite the movements she’s taken, and Alice narrows her eyes, twitching as rage floods into her veins. Go away, go away, go away - EQUINOX goes away, ducking into the hall and rushing to the bathroom. Alice lets out a small sigh and drops her head into her hands, sliding down into a sitting position. She feels so tired and sick from all these emotions, and the blood in her mouth and dripping from her thumb isn’t doing much to help. Her thoughts go nowhere. She just sits there, breathing in and out, feeling the tension in her body straining to burst from her veins. It’s taking everything Alice has to not scream again. But she has to try. If she doesn’t try, what does that make her? What does that make this relationship? Alice doesn’t want to think about that, and she certainly doesn’t want to answer it, so she drags her hands from her face and looks over at the debris that used to be a monitor. Maybe she could fix it. That’s a pipe dream, of course, but Alice still stands up and walks over, crouching down to investigate the remains. She awkwardly fidgets with the broken technology, her thumb’s bleeding only serving to distract and irritate her more before EQUINOX returns. “You don’t have to do that,” she mumbles, and Alice snaps her head up on reflex, looking at her as normally as she can. “I got your bandaid,” EQUINOX continues, and after one more glare, she offers it over, hand trembling. Alice grabs it. It’s one of her snake-themed kiddy bandaids. Why did she get these? How embarrassing. Once it’s applied, Alice feels a whole lot of stress slip from her body, and she offers a weak “Thanks.” “What… what happened?” EQUINOX is looking at her monitor again. Alice glares at her and stands up. She doesn’t want to answer that or acknowledge that ever again. EQUINOX drops her head, looking at the ground, and Alice takes the opportunity to make sure her thumb is in working order. Of course it is, this is nothing. Her pointless tests are interrupted by EQUINOX’s voice. “You don’t have to buy a new one. I can fix it.” Her eyes move from her thumb to EQUINOX, and Alice scowls a little. The expression on EQUINOX’s face immediately sinks back into miserable, and, guiltily, Alice grumbles “I’ll buy a new one. You should focus on your work. Still on the planning stage, right?” as she walks past to escape the scenario. She doesn’t mean it, but the words come out wrong. Hurtful. EQUINOX shrinks back, clearly expecting the worst, and for a second, Alice contemplates giving it to her. Instead, she stomps away after EQUINOX’s frantic apologies, feeling the need to punch something until all her emotions go away. Yeah, that sounds nice. Alice chews on her bandaged thumb and winces. Category:Stories Category:Promestein's Pages Category:Agency Category:Blog posts